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Bennink H.J. – Tempo Comodo
Data:823, 1982
It must have been around 1978 when I first saw Han Bennink perform.
It was in ‘de Tagrijn’, a youth center and pop podium in Hilversum. I was
blown away by the way he played, using all kinds of objects and went
around the hall beating on radiators, tables, chairs and about everything
he could beat on to create an original sound. Years later when I had my
own coffee shop, Han came along as a frequent customer, living quite
nearby. We became like friends and Han performed many times in the
shop. I also owned a bar in those days where Han used to come drumming
on the 31st of December. We called it ‘Old Years Fireworks with Han Bennink’.
Just Han and his drum kit. I have added some pictures from those days, On
one occasion we had us a little smoke which produced that funny pic with
Han and a little cloud in front of him. He gave me this record from 1982
one day. An outstanding example of his wonderful work ..
Het moet ergens in 1978 zijn geweest dat ik Han Bennink voor het eerst
zag optreden. Het was in ‘de Tagrijn’, een jeugd centrum en pop podium
in Hilversum. Het was een ongelooflijke ervaring, Han sloeg op van alles,
radiators, tafels, stoelen en wat hij maar kon verzinnen en ging erbij de
zaal rond om vervolgens weer achter zijn drumstel te belanden. Jaren
later toen ik mijn eigen coffee shop had, kwam Han regelmatig langs en
werd een vaste bezoeker, hij woonde dichtbij. We werden als vrienden
en Han heeft in die tijd vaak bij ons in de shop opgetreden. Ik had ook
een café waar Han elk jaar op 31 december het Oude Jaars Vuurwerk
met zijn drums verzorgde. Ik heb wat foto’s uit die tijd bijgevoegd. Op
een dag rookte we wat, het bracht een leuk plaatje voort. Han Bennink
gaf me deze plaat op een mooie dag, een pracht album ..
01 – Walk
02 – Brushes/Airdrumming
03 – Stick trick
04 – Ivory horses
05 – Traps 1
06 – Rims
07 – Stones
08 – Traps 2
09 – Donnerwetter
10 – Body claps & hums
11 – Salut to fode youla
12 – De krieps
13 – Traps 3
14 – Dropsticks
15 – Tempo comodo
16 – Stroef
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Great post, many thanks
saludos amigo Moos, de casualidad usted no posee ese álbum
https://www.discogs.com/es/release/6669993-Orchestre-De-Bouake-Bienvenue-le-Pr%C3%A9sident-Ahidjo-Pachanga-con-migo-Pachanga-sunny-Nanan-Houphouet
gracias
No lo tengo Antonio ..
listo, gracias
I used to have this record :) I don’t remember the first time I saw Han Bennink, must’ve been around ’82 maybe, seen him quite a few times, mostly with his trusted side kick Misha Mengelberg or solo, or with Ernst Reijseger the cello player, I was a drummer myself back in those days, coming out of the punk scene into the more experimental scene and seeing Han Bennink play, as a drummer, you feel like “I will always be an amateur” :) His best performance, and one of the best concerts I’ve been to was him and drummer Cees “IJzermans” Meurs from Rotterdam post-punk band Kiem, Cees with his drumkit mostly made up from old ship parts. Cees, who basically was a punk drummer with endless amounts of energy kept the rhythms super sharp and ongoing, and Bennink, with an old beaten up simple jazz kit was just all over the place, an amazing combination, and the lucky ones that were there, even after all these years, some 39 years later, still talk about that performance every now and again. I wish somebody would’ve filmed it, or at least recorded the music (and who knows, maybe somebody did) and would post it on youtube or something…..
Cheers for putting up this post, brings back great memories :)
Henk – it might be this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbbX7BAoNgM
Cheers, Lucky
P. S.: I’ve seen Han Bennink only once, in a duet with pianist Simon Nabatov. What really blew me away – it was a very fancy setting, like for classical music normally, big place, and the audience was small, but consisted of much old folks with luxury wardrobe and all. Well, Han and Simon started by producing complete noise the first15 minutes or so, absolute hilarious and in full force. Shortly, one by one, the audience minimized, and after the classics have gone – Han looked into the audience, very pleased, said something like you could come more forward now that we are among ourselves, and they played the swingiest and nicest jazz you can think of, like Herbie Nichols stuff, Bennink with brushes and all… the old folks would’ve liked that, but they were gone. Hehe. :)
Here’s the original source – incl. a downloadable MP3 in 192:
https://www.kiemrotterdam.nl/kiemrotterdam/drum-battle-1985-cees-ijzermans-han-bennink-b14-rotterdam/
I saw Han play with ICP Orchestra back in the mid 90s in Oakland California. It was awesome.
I had read about his ‘unorthodox’ drumming and heard a few his records… but seeing him in person was a whole different thing. Definitely something I’ll always remember!
Good times! Thanks for posting this one 😎
Nice shout-out to you/ for you @ HTD
you are much appreciated (for over a decade now)!!!
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